April 9, 2011

Transformation

From this in the fall:

To this in my driveway yesterday:

Every autumn the town of West Hartford vacuums up homeowner's raked leaves, sends them to a company called Envirocycle, and through nature's miraculous transformation they become black crumbly soft fluffy stuff in a couple years.

I bought a truckload, and it was delivered in a great big pile that I am using to fill some new gardens, enhance the soil in the old gardens, and otherwise spread around with gleeful abandon.

My only question:
Was the blue tarp really necessary?

Actually, you should always use a blue tarp for protection in any and all situations.

Otherwise you'd get dirt all over everything and it would make a mess in the cracks between the pavers.

Get the shovels out.

15 comments:

That's great! There is a spot my the stream in our backyard where it seems people have been dumping leaves for decades that I was really hoping would be a great source of free compost, but at least half of the trees on our property are Oak, which I'm told doesn't really break down. Or takes much longer than everything else meaning I'd have to pick all the oak leaves out to use what's broken down... makes me sad...: ) Meg

We have a place to take garden "waste" and then we can also pick up compost there for free. We have to shovel it into the pickup ourselves. It would be nice to have such great compost delivered. Yes, we use blue tarps too. When we get down to the last bit in the pickup, we just pull the tarp out and don't have to sweep so much from the pickup bed.

Awesome!!! VA/MD do the same thing, sort of. They compost leaves and sell them in bags called Leaf Gro. It's the best compost I've ever used because leaves are full of humic acid, which helps develop healthy root systems, "improves nutrient uptake, increases chlorophyll synthesis, and stimulates beneficial microbial activity". You're about to have a very happy garden!! :o)

Funny, I just posted about compost this morning, too, Laurrie. I think these community recycling projects of landscape materials are great. I got a truckload last fall to cover my new flowerbed and pick up some every so often to add to the other areas. Just think of all the muscle-toning you're going to get from toting wheelbarrows full of compost around:)

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